Category Archives: family

James Joyce Knows Motherhood

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“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”
— Agatha Christie

such a beautiful quote on motherhood

yesterday my day was more like this quote

“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world, a mother’s love is not.”
— James Joyce

emphasis on the dunghill

I came back from work yesterday, said goodbye to the babysitter, and told my daughter I needed to “go potty.” Yes, I am a grown woman who says “go potty” probably 20 times a day – even in reference to myself.

Caroline took off like a rocket towards my bathroom. She grabbed the kid potty out from under the sink and set it on the floor. We are not potty training her. She just found the potty stored under there one day and takes it out every once in awhile.

She took off her pants and made it clear she wanted to take off her diaper. I helped her, humoring her since I needed to change her diaper anyway. She wanted to take her shirt off but I refused. Just for the record, no one else takes their shirt off here when going to the bathroom.

I realized I didn’t have a clean diaper so I walked around the corner to get one.

When I walked back in I found this…

Poop.At first my eyes to brain connection wasn’t working. I couldn’t figure out what the pile was on the ground. When I suddenly made the connection…

Oh Sh*t!

LITERALLY!

I calmly grabbed her, cleaned her up – this included taking off her shirt which was now dirty (I should have listened to her about taking off her shirt), her dirty socks (she had managed to run all around the room in the 5 seconds I was gone), and her body.

I cleaned up the mess and put her down for her nap.

All rather calmly if I do say so myself.

An hour later I found another pile of it in my the closet……on the carpet.

My Very First Giveaway!

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I thought the best way to celebrate my first guest posting was to have my first giveaway. When I told my husband he said, “Wait a minute…shouldn’t we think about this.” I told him to relax and not to worry. It’s not like I was planning on giving away our car or even his flannel pj’s…although on second thought. No, no I’ll stick with the plan.

What I am giving away is one completed coupon box of activity cards.

Activity Card Holder with pencils, eraser, and pencil sharpner.The winner will receive 48 activity cards, 3 pencils, 1 pencil sharpener, and 1 eraser.

In case you are not familiar with my activity coupon box, go here to read about my idea.

Here are the ways you can enter:

1 entry if you make a comment on this post

1 additional entry if you are a follower (leave a comment to let me know)

*You have until Sunday Jan 16 to enter*

Thanks and good luck to everyone!

Meatless Meal Ideas…I need help!

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Since my goal this January is to lower our eating bill by $125.00, I’ve been thinking of some ways to do this. One way is to make my meal plan for the week and stick to it. Here’s this weeks meal plan which we have stuck to so:

Monday: Italian sausage bake, fruit

Tuesday: Pork chops,corn , applesauce, rice packet

Wednesday: homemade pizza & salad

Thursday: Blueberry muffins, eggs, fruit

Friday: Beef Stir Fry, eggrolls

Saturday:taco soup, fruit

Sunday:meatball subs, green beans, fruit

I also noticed that we eat meat for practically every dinner. That’s not good on the budget and it can’t be healthy.  Here’s a list of the meatless meals that are typically in our rotation. I would love to expand this list:

*tomato soup, grilled cheese, pickle

*broccoli, rice, cheese casserole

*homemade pizza

*pasta

*breakfast foods (pancakes, blueberry muffins, waffles)

Do you have any ideas for meatless meals? I’d love to hear from you.

Christmas Pics: A Little Late

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I realize this is late but I figure better late than never.We managed to decorate our house a bit for Christmas so I thought I’d show you some of the pictures and a few of the activities we did.

Here’s our Christmas mantle. I decided to go with a red, silver, and blue theme. I thought those colors might be a nice change from the typical red and green. The JOY letters were stuck on the wall until they came crashing down one night at 3 am. They have been sitting on the mantle ever since. I bought them at JoAnn’s, painted them red, and modge podged them with glitter.christmas mantleI took a frame and hung snowflakes in it. I placed it next to my Pier 1 glitter trees. Boy oh boy I wish my sister still worked there. The only thing I bought bedsides the JOY letters were the blue ornaments.

left side of the mantleThese are a couple of branches I took and spray painted white. I hung various blue ornaments from the branches. I placed some white and silver Mardi Gras beads inside the jar to keep the branches stable. treeHere’s our cheap and easy Christmas card display. I wanted to create this elaborate yarn and metal display that I have floating around in my head but it never happened so I’ll keep that in mind for next year.

christmas card holderI took a 3M Command Strip (which failed to keep my JOY letters up) and placed them on the wall. I took strips of ribbon, punched a hole at the top, and hung the strips. We then hung the cards with clothespins.close up holderGetting ready to visit Santa. Alex was feeling very sick that day so only Caroline and Andrew went. Turns out they were only willing to look at him and neither one would go close to Santa.before going to see santaMaking gingerbread houses – yes, it’s a pre-made kit, they loved itmaking gingerbread house

Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas as a family.Who knew I had six chins?

The Action Nativity SetnativityA wise man watching from the trees, ready to attackaction nativityEvery day Andrew would move the figures around and have a whisper dialogue with them. I desperately tried to hear some specifics but never could get close enough. All I know is that one day the wise men were on their sides, the animals were on top of the stable, and baby Jesus was behind the trees.nativityFamily photo I took of everyone before we went into the ICE exhibit in Grapevine.ervyoneHope your holidays were wonderful!

Happy New Year!

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Long time, no write.

I took some time off of posting since we got kind of crazy around here and had lots of family come in for a visit.

Hope everyone has had an amazing start to 2011!

We have rung in the new year by staying in our pajamas for two whole days – love it!

Derek and I decided to make some financial goals for our family this year.

Along with those large goals, I’ve made some smaller financial goals for me to focus on. Hopefully, these smaller goals will help us reach the larger goals.

I’m probably going about it in an odd fashion but I think it’s a method that will suit me.

I’m going to make new goals each month in order to save some money. Hopefully after the month is over I will have made some long term changes. You will have to check back every month to find out what our goal is.

January’s financial goal is: to spend $125 less on groceries/eating out a month.

After looking at 2010”s financial statistics I think we spent entirely too much in this catergory. My hope is to carry this into other months but for now the focus is saving on groceries/eating out in January.

I’ll let you know our progress at the end of the month – plus give you our new method for February – it’s definitely an out of the box one.

Have you made any financial goals for 2011?

Listening Around the House

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“Poopy face”

“Go poop in a bucket, pooper”

“Why did the chicken cross the road?…to get poop”

What? You are not laughing hysterically?

You must not be an 8 and under boy.

The above is what life at my house is like right now.

Wait till I introduce them to: defecation, excrement, stool, and dung.

Then we’ll really be having good times.

Influences from the Past

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I only ever remember lacking two things when growing up. Other than those two things I had an amazing childhood.

We had a house of 6 people – 4 girls, 2 boys. We were constantly going through supplies and my mom made runs to Sam’s or Schwegmann’s all the time. But…we were always out of toilet paper.  I have used thousands of napkins in a way not intended by their manufacturers. When we would get to the point of using napkins, my dad would always go out for toilet paper.

For some reason he would always come back with one roll!  I never could understand it. We had two working bathrooms and he would still just come home with 1 roll of toilet paper. So before the night was over we were back to napkins.

Besides toilet paper we always ran low on toothpaste. A countless number of times we would have cut open the tube and would scrap our toothbrushes in there..for days. It didn’t always happen but it happened enough to make an impression on me.

As a result of these memories, I currently have no less than 24 rolls of toilet paper and probably 5 tubes of toothpaste in my house. You never know when you might run out.

Well fear not, I too am making my children obsessive about something.

I don’t know what it is but I hate buying socks. The thought of spending money on socks drives me crazy. I would rather wash and rewash two good pairs of socks then buy another pack.

But recently this is what I heard, “Mom I need new socks.” “Mom, there are holes in all of my socks.” “Moooooommmmm, I can’t find any socks.”

I don’t know what they are talking about.

sock feetIn fairness, I would like to say that not all socks find the laundry bucket. In the last day I have found socks in random places – under the TV table, under a bed, 3 on the playroom floor, 2 in the car, 1 on the stairs, and 1 on our entry way ledge which is at least 15 feet off the ground. Why would a sock possibly be up there you ask? Alex: “But Mom, I needed a football and couldn’t find my football so I used my sock.” So you see, I only accept 50% off the blame.

So the other day during our Christmas shopping we went out to buy socks. Each boy got 6 pairs of socks of their choosing. I’m sure when they are old enough they will each have 63 pairs of socks in their drawer.

No family… you do not need to give my boys socks for Christmas. Nor do I need any toilet paper or toothpaste.

Obsessions anyone?

Advent Calendar with a Twist

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After you read this post today you may think I only do craft projects that involve paper bags. Not so. But I can’t prove that today. Usually my paper bag crafts are my spur of the moment ideas and the bags are the only materials around.

Last year the kids and I made a paper bag Christmas tree which they partially decorated using markers. Here’s the way our advent tree works. On December 1 they receive a paper ornament which states something we will be doing, watching, or making that deals with Christmas. One of the boys gets to glue it onto our tree. The next day the other one gets to glue it on. On certain days they receive their ornament before school while other days they receive their ornament after school (it depends if I have my act together or not). Here’s a picture of the finished project.

advent treeHere’s a close up of some of the ornaments.  Some days they would receive one ornament while on other days they would receive a bonus one.

ornaments
There is a small part of me that cringes when these are glued onto the tree every which way. I do have to tell myself that having symmetry in this craft is not the purpose. But oh how I sometimes try to make suggestions of where the ornament could be placed.

This year I’ve made a tentative list of activities for our family. Some will change based on schedules and weather but it’s a start:

  • Wed Dec 1 – Watch The Grinch
  • Thurs Dec 2 – Make Christmas cards for Omi & Opa (great grandparents)
  • Fri Dec 3 – Choose Angels from Angel tree
  • Sat Dec 4- Andrew’s Christmas program
  • Sun Dec 5-Shop for Angels
  • Mon Dec 6 – Have hot chocolate & marshmellows
  • Tues Dec 7 – Watch Frosty’s Winter Wonderland
  • Wed Dec 8 – Turn in Angel gifts & get cookie at mall
  • Thurs Dec 9 – Watch Santa Claus is Coming to Town
  • Fri Dec 10- get tree?
  • Sat Dec 11-Photo with Santa at school
  • Sun Dec 12-make snow globes
  • Mon Dec 13-Assign & Hang Stockings
  • Tues Dec 14-drive around and look at lights
  • Wed Dec 15-?
  • Thurs Dec 16- Andrew’s school Christmas party
  • Fri Dec 17-Alex’s school Christmas party
  • Sat Dec 18-Frisco downtown – Santa parachutes in?
  • Sun Dec 19-wrap some presents
  • Mon Dec 20-Go see Northpark train display?
  • Tues Dec 21-Make Christmas cookies
  • Wed Dec 22-Aunt Amanda, Uncle Ryan, and Gramma & Grampa arrive
  • Thurs Dec 23-Aunt Kelly & Uncle Ben arrive
  • Fri Dec 24-go to ICE! display in Grapevine
  • Sat Dec 25 – Christmas

Do you have any unique ways your family celebrates the holidays?

Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Starters

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We always have family dinners because I think it’s an important as a family but also because I love to hear what my kids say (most of the time).

For example, tonight my husband yawned and said, ” I’m pooped.”

Our 8 year old promptly said, “You mean you pooped in your pants. Gross. You stink.”

That kind of conversation while I’m eating I could probably do without.

I did however find some Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Starters on the Skip to My Lou website. These would be lots of fun if you are having a dinner with a few generations. I’ve already printed off a copy and put them in my bag for next Thursday. Get ready to share mom and dad 🙂